Why I invested in Nigerian folklore

Title: My Folklore Journey

Author: Bukar Usman

Publisher:: Klamidas Communications Ltd, Abuja

year : 2026

pagination: 402

Reviewer: Henry Akubuiro

Bukar Usman has dominated headlines in Nigerian folklore in recent years. He never saw it coming. It was fortuitous at first, then a romance that germinated seeds. Like a painter, he made every stroke count before applying the master stroke that resonated.

“My earliest interest in folktales was sparked by my mother, Palmata Dambu Usman. The tale rendering was a nightly session that took place in our community compound in Whitamshal Ward of Biu Town, my birth place,” Bukar Usman begins in the first chapter of My Folklore Journey. As a routine, his mother regaled them with moonlight tales, which took place in two sessions, depending on the weather conditions: either in the kitchen courtyard during harmattan or in the courtyard most times.

Most of these stories, he recalls, were moralising tales, explanatory tales or marital tales. They also included trickster tales, enfant-terrible tales, and sweet-revenge tales. With time, Usman and fellow kids got used to the behaviour of popular folktale characters, especially animals, making it easier to predict their behaviour in given situations, irrespective of the outcome.

Usman’s recollections echo the experiences of most Nigerian kids growing up in the villages and other communities until urbanisation and modern entertainment gadgets overthrew the old order. The author acknowledges that experiencing those moonlight tales was a richer experience than reading the stories (in book or other forms).

The writer extended his folklore horizon when he enrolled in primary school in 1951. Narrating it in the second chapter, Usman says, as a Bura-Babur speaker from southern Borno, he had to learn the Hausa language for four years to understand the medium used in the recommended Hausa folktales. Most of these recommended texts were written by the legendary Abubakar Imam. He noted, too, that Hausa was widely spoken in the state capital, Maiduguri, where he rounded off his elementary education.

Compared to the traditional cultural experiences he was exposed to at home, his admission to King’s College, Lagos, in 1964 changed completely. He was in a school with routine and regulation rules. “There were no customary lores to go by and nothing after was guided by oral tradition. Everything was set down as rigid but beneficial tenets in the College’s Rule” p.35). From King’s College, he was admitted to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he was quickly impressed with the material culture showcased by the students.

However, the most memorable cultural artifact he was introduced to in Zaria was the durbar. He recalls: “The durbar event was one of those occasions when artifacts (verbal material and customary) were put on display” (p. 46).

Usman was appointed to the Cabinet Office (later, the Presidency) on January 11, 1972. His role had no cultural responsibilities. He was, in 1975, appointed a member of the Organising Committee of 2nd Word Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC 77) on Tour of Italy, Yugoslavia, Finland, Sweden, France, and UK. His role here was basically providing facilities for the event. Usman admitted that FESTAC ‘77 “still remains one of the greatest diverse folkloric displays the world has ever seen” (p.48).

The book details how the author got involved in folktales research in the fourth chapter. It arose from an encounter with his publisher, Duve Nakoilisa, who, after publishing his public service books – ***Press, Policy & Responsibilities ***(1998), Democracy Human Rights and National Stability (1999), and Voices in the Choir: Issues in Democratisation and National Stability in Nigeria (1999) – challenged him to try writing on folklore.

Usman accepted the challenge and commissioned some researchers in Biu, his home town, to collect folktales. He created eight short stories out of them. Thus, his first collection of short stories, The Bride without Scars and Other Stories, was born. Usman points out that the stories were not direct transactions of the collected folktales from his home town, as he enriched them with imaginative writing. “In most cases, I needed to expand the plots of the raw narratives collected because some of them came in summary form, without dialogues and without adequate motivation for the behaviour or actions of the characters,” (p.51) he writes.

From his folktale-inspired short stories, another major folklore project carried out by the author was getting The Dr Bukar Usman Foundation to provide funding for the execution of folktales research undertakings; hence, he inaugurated the Pan-Nigerian tale-collection project designed to cover communities across Nigeria. Klamidas Communications Ltd was commissioned for the first seven series on July 2, 2013.

After they returned their reports, Usman, as the editor of the anthologies, had the burden of reading the manuscripts and classifying the 213 tales collected. To his credit, he produced two large volumes of A Treasure of Nigerian Tales (Vol. 1 and 2), each over 1,600 pages. In addition, some of the folktales collected during the nationwide tale-collection were later published in Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. Impressively, his book of folk narratives, published in indigenous languages, have been distributed beyond Nigerian shores. Some are being used in foreign universities.

In the seventh chapter, Usman writes on the Biu Emirates Series, books dedicated to the history, languages found in the Biu area, and the educational development of the girl-child. The BESS books include Girl-Child Education in Biu Emirate: The Early Years, Language Disappearance and Cultural Diversity in Biu Emirate, and ***A History of Biu. ***

Lest we forget, the author recently resigned as the president of Nigerian Folklore Society after serving for 12 years, having been elected initially in 2014. It was a journey that saw him and his team restore the glory of the moribund association with a well executed agenda. From 2013 when he presented the keynote speech, “Folklore and History: Twin Rivers of World Heritage”, at the International Conference on Folklore, National Integration and Development at Bayero University, Kano, in 2013, to the intervening period of revival, his team held other successful conferences in 2015, 2017, and 2019 before Covid-19 and other issues put on hold the confab in the next few years.

The later end of the publication contains detailed interviews, where Usman sheds light on topical issues relating to folklore in Nigeria and his involvement in the genre. There are also a selection of songs composed in his honour. The book comes with a surfeit of photos of engagements attended by the author, those of notable personalities, and flora and fauna of Biu. An enticing read.

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